GRAPHICS

GAMEPLAY

STORY

Capcom’s action RPG, Dragon’s Dogma is back…sort of. This time around the series has been remastered for Playstation 4 and Xbox One after a successful remastered launch on PC just last October. In Dragon’s Dogma, you play the Arisen, a person destined to find and destroy the new born Dragon before it destroys the world.

Dragon’s Dogma is a 2012 action RPG, developed and published by Capcom, the core game and expansion Dark Arisen have been remastered for 2017, available on PC, Playstation 4, and Xbox One.

Editor’s Note: Review of Dragon’s Dogma: Dark Arisen HD is written from a first playthrough perspective.

An already beautiful action RPG gets a beautiful upgrade.

Upon it’s initial release in 2012, Dragon’s Dogma became quite an entity. It was praised for it’s innovation and mix of traditional action RPG gameplay while taking some inspiration from titles such as Shadow of the Colossus. It’s soundtrack, sound, and other elements put it over as one of the greatest action RPGs of its time. These elements have been severely improved with the new remaster.

A Player character and its pawn companions.

THE GOOD: Dragon’s Dogma is a unique find from the action RPG genre. It’s one of the few of its kind which takes pride in almost every single bit of attention to detail from music, to general sound, and in some cases even design, Dragon’s Dogma tries to make it’s world into a true singular entity. For example, the music often switches tone upon coming across enemies while out in the wild. The world is pretty open with side quests and a large map to explore alongside the main story quests.

Take on great beasts as you fight your way to challenge the Dragon as the Arisen.

The game is quite challenging in some areas, even within the early hours of playing, Dragon’s Dogma will have you facing off against bosses a number of times before finally slaying your prey for good. Speaking of boss fights, as mentioned earlier, the game takes some inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus, whereas you can climb on the enormous creatures to deal heavy blows for high damage. The Dark Arisen expansion improves a number of mechanics with additional content from the core game, including a much requested fast travel.

Great challenges await you in Gransys.

THE BAD: Even with the new console port, the game still has issues struggling during high animation stresses in gameplay with FPS taking some dips. Characters can also be a tad flat.

The Dark Arisen rises once more.

OVERALL THOUGHTS: Dragon’s Dogma is an oddity, while it has some tech hiccups, the overall experience you get throughout proves to far outweigh the few, yet noticeable flaws. It is because of this, it’s strong attention to detail, difficulty, and gameplay that Dragon’s Dogma is a must buy regardless of the platform you opt to experience it with.